Page:The lay of the Nibelungs; (IA nibelungslay00hortrich).pdf/36

xxxii influenced the work done, these two Poems, could we trust our individual feeling, have in one respect the same poetical result for us: in the “Nibelungen” as in the “Gerusalemme,” the persons and their story are indeed brought vividly before us, yet not near and palpably present; it is rather as if we looked on that scene through an inverted telescope, whereby the whole was carried far away into the distance, the life-large figures compressed into brilliant miniatures, so clear, so real, yet tiny, elf-like and beautified as well as lessened, their colours being now closer and brighter, the shadows and trivial features no longer visible. This, as we partly apprehend, comes of singing Epic Poems; most part of which only pretend to be sung. Tasso’s rich melody still lives among the Italian people; the “Nibelungen” also is what it professes to be, a Song.

No less striking than the verse and language is the quality of the invention manifested here. Of the Fable, or narrative material of the “Nibelungen,” we should say that it had high, almost the highest merit; so daintily yet firmly is it put together; with such felicitous selection of the beautiful, the essential, and no less felicitous rejection of whatever was unbeautiful or even extraneous. The reader is no longer afflicted with that chaotic brood of Fire-drakes, Giants, and malicious turbaned Turks, so fatally rife in the “Heldenbuch”; all this is swept away, or only hovers in faint shadows afar off; and free field is open for legitimate perennial interests. Yet neither is the “Nibelungen” without its wonders; for it is poetry and not prose; here too, a supernatural world encompasses the natural, and, though at rare intervals and in calm manner, reveals itself there. It is truly wonderful, with what skill our simple untaught Poet deals with the marvelous; admitting it without reluctance or criticism, yet precisely in the degree and shape that will best avail him. Here, if in no other respect, we should say that he has a decided superiority to Homer himself. The whole story of the “Nibelungen” is fateful, mysterious, guided on by unseen influences; yet the actual marvels are few, and done in the far distance; those